Your World Within Podcast by Eddie Pinero
Letter to 2024 | New Years Motivation for 2025
Mon, 30 Dec 2024
Goodbye, 2024. Hello, 2025. As we close this chapter, let's toast to the lessons, the growth, and the moments that shaped us. The new year is a blank page, a canvas waiting for bold strokes and big dreams. What will you create in 2025? Let’s make it count! Monday Motivation Newsletter: https://www.eddiepinero.com/newsletter Free Ebook: www.eddiepinero.com/ebook YouTube: www.eddiepinero.com/youtube
Chapter 1: What lessons did we learn from 2024?
Thank you all for being here with me tonight. It's certainly an honor to be standing up here on stage. I think I'd like to start with a toast to none other than my friend and mentor, 2024. Where are you, 2024? Ah, there you are, in the back. Stand up. Well, let me tell you all about 2024. It's been a wild one. 2024 is rolling his eyes back there. You and I, we've seen some things.
But where to begin? I suppose it makes sense to start with the winters. For a year that's only 365 days long, we sure had a few, right? A lot of closing away and reinventing. been certainly something that's occurred in the past, but I think the magnitude and scale here is significant. We're both disciples, 2024 and I, of Greg McKeown's essentialism and have been for about seven years now.
And so I try and make that my North Star, strength through simplicity and clarity. And man, that's just, it's not always as easy as it sounds. In fact, it's often torturous.
So for example, I closed the door on two businesses last year, not because they weren't successful or didn't have potential, but because they did not in any capacity light me up, because they weren't the art and creation that makes me feel alive. And while letting go of those things certainly generates some relief, there's also this feeling of what have I done? Right?
Like, I hope you know what you're doing, dude. But 2024, you were essential time and time again in reminding me that the barren wasteland I often found myself navigating was in fact essential. It's just the necessary wandering before one finds their footing again. The cold and the ice and the gray of winter always seems to make its way through. You just have to embrace it.
Those cold moments in outcomes, sometimes in people, sometimes in people that were in your inner circle, the heartbreak, the exhaustion, disappointment in ideas that didn't pan out, all of that stuff, right? You think while you're in it, these moments can only be, how do you put it? Detrimental to what you want most but it turns out they're just the price tag attached to what you want most.
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Chapter 2: How can winter moments lead to growth?
And I think winter whispers to us that growth begins not always in motion, but sometimes in stillness. That even when it seems crazy, dreams are planted beneath the frozen soil. In fact, the more I think about it, the more I wonder if it's why the desert called to us 2024. It can seem so vast and vacant and empty. In fact, some people out there don't understand it at all. It's like the desert.
But let me tell you, the way the sun rises over those mountains, the warm air on your face at night, the clearest skies I've ever seen, that blanket of stars overhead, It will change your life if you let it. It certainly changed ours. And then there was spring. The epiphanies, right? The good stuff. After all, we don't endure those winters just because. No, they are taking us somewhere.
the little seeds that were previously planted start to sprout. Less things means more focus on the right things, which means the right things become bigger things. If what you water grows, oh, have we carefully cultivated this garden, 2024. Thank you for helping me protect that.
And it's like you look around at what exists, fewer people, but good people, inspiring people, people who don't take away but add to the beauty in life. You look around at a world where you're not trying to emulate some other style or approach to success, but are so all in on yours that you double and triple down. even when it's weird or out there or untested.
You see hope and excitement and opportunity intertwined in everything around you, even things that really have no business being appointed opportunities. But like you've pointed out to me before, over and over again, 2024, you can literally feel the momentum.
That pulsating hope and potential energy behind the right things means so much more than any amount of velocity pointed in the wrong direction, right? We had substantially less and somehow substantially more. We had nothing and somehow everything at the same time. The seeds of hope sprung eternal. This is what you live for. And we made that 2024. Which brought us right to summer.
Which I know, I know you continuously reminded me it didn't matter, but I'm human 2024. Come on, that V word, validation, and we got some. We spoke all over the world, met some of our heroes. We grew our brand, partnered with some amazing companies, got better at our craft along the way. Oh, and had fun doing it. I changed my body, my life outlook, my routine.
I gave myself permission at a larger scale to detach from results and push creative boundaries. In fact, I spend sometimes half of my day, every day, working on a project that may, upon its release, absolutely bomb. But it feels right, and so it is. What I've learned is you can control how much of yourself you give to the world. That's yours.
But you cannot control how that's received by the world. It is the beauty of summer. Collecting W's from time to time is fun, it's very fun, but it's not as fun as doing it your way, even if it takes a little longer, even if it requires you cross oceans and climb mountains, even when you can't see what the end looks like.
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Chapter 3: What epiphanies do we experience in spring?
because it reminded me, 2024, that just like those stars strung out across that desert sky, our light shines brightest when we leave the city and carve out our own paths. It's in facing darkness head on that we finally free ourselves to write the most precious of tales. So thank you, 2024. And before I head off stage here, just one more quick thanks.
I'd like to make the newest member of the team 2025. There you are. Stand up. I think you're going to fit right in here 2025. What a ride that awaits.
The hard thing brought me through hell, but also to that which exists on the other side.
The hard thing prompted me to question and doubt, but also provided the pieces I used to build my confidence little by little. It made me ask the tough questions, the ones maybe I didn't want to hear the answer to. but also gave me the power to transform those answers I didn't like. The hard thing meant forfeiting being the expert in my world in exchange for the role of student in a foreign arena.
Gave me new ladders to climb, new possibilities to reach for. It showed that true growth requires a willingness to be the beginner. It took some people out of my arms, my circle, my work, and in some cases my life altogether, but always seemed to open the door to those souls better aligned, to those conducive to the journey and the process. Let's remember what the hard thing is.
Beyond the pain, because we all know it does bring that. Beyond the challenges, because there are certainly many. Beyond all that exists the hope and the change and the promise. Robert Frost says the best way out is always through. Through because it's the chaos, the haze, the darkness of night that shapes us.
It's in being broken that we learn to rebuild our world with the pieces, and perhaps most importantly, we learn that such a rebuilding process is possible to begin with, that the now is not mandatory or permanent. The hard thing, as it turns out, is nothing more than a transaction. Turbulence for the view above the clouds. Fear in the moment for confidence in the future.
It's learning that although life sometimes appears to paint a picture of conformity and helplessness, there's always a path leading to the very place we need to go. It just asks we find the courage to walk it. Churchill has said, the pessimist sees difficulty in every opportunity. The optimist sees opportunity in every difficulty. And this beautiful message rings true.
Because from the difficulty is the advantage. And sure, our first instinct is to see the problem. Our eyes tend to initially fixate on that which is unfortunate.
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Chapter 4: How does summer bring validation and change?
It's from staring down the hard thing and moving directly into it one little step at a time. Nothing in life is as important as you think it is while you are thinking about it. This was written by the author of Thinking Fast and Slow, Daniel Kahneman. And what he's referring to is a cognitive bias known as the focusing illusion. Pretty basic idea.
Means that we elevate the importance of things that we think about while ignoring other aspects of our lives. By thinking about something, it suddenly matters more to us. And while it's easy to interpret this disconnect between our thoughts and reality as alarming, there's also an opportunity here to use this to our advantage, to further become the captain of your ship.
I've heard my entire life, think positive thoughts. We all have. But there's value in understanding why that's true, right? Otherwise it just feels like a meaningless ritual. So Kahneman talks about a study with college students where they were asked about their overall level of happiness. And then they were asked about their dating lives and the answers they gave.
There were really, you know, there was no correlation between the two answers. But when the order of the questions were switched, when the students were asked about their dating lives first, and then their overall happiness, the correlation between the two answers increased.
The answer they gave about their overall happiness mirrored however they said their dating lives were, at least to a much greater extent. Why? Well, because dating became the variable or the framework that they used to measure their overall happiness, even though perhaps they didn't know it, right? But by focusing on it, it became more relevant. It bled into other aspects of life, right?
You get what you focus on. It's that simple. And the truth is, as I mentioned earlier,
nothing is as important as we think it is everything is is magnified kind of blown out of proportion in our minds so the question is why not use that as an advantage why not let that become our strength realizing that if simply thinking about something can change the trajectory of how we view the world it can be transformative to simply minimize the bad thoughts and focus on good ones.
Have you ever thought about how delicate the line we walk between not caring enough and caring too much? For example, to feel like existence is pointless. Everything's bad, there's no reason to try. That makes it hard to get off the couch, lacking that purpose.
But then on the entire other end of the spectrum, to feel like life is riding on every step, to feel like we're not allowed the flexibility or leeway to make mistakes, life matters too much. That also severely limits how we live, just in a different way. And so I want to explore how do we find that middle ground? How do we find that picture in our heads that puts us right where we need to be?
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Chapter 5: What does fall teach us about introspection?
The idea that, of course, today is important. Life is a beautiful opportunity to extract meaning from the world around you, to build something that matters. But it's also no checklist. It's no standardized test. No, it's more of a game. We shouldn't be walking around with the weight of the world on our shoulders because that doesn't help anyone. Let's face it, life is just not all that serious.
As a good friend of mine, Steve always says to me, you know, we are sacks of meat on a rock floating through an infinite, ever-expanding universe and nothing matters. I've heard him say that a million times, right? Let's go. Let's do it. Nothing matters. Let's make it happen. And I'm 100% get it. It's a check against the idea that the world will collapse if we screw up.
That if we drop the ball, it's over. Kind of pointing to the fact that the only way to truly lose in life is to look back and realize we were too scared to live. And so in that context, absolutely, I'm on the nothing matters bandwagon. But here's the deal about this video or podcast episode, however you're consuming it. In a perfect world, it's a buffet, not a menu.
It's an opportunity for you to think, to reflect, to pick and choose the pieces here that will help move you along. Because after all, we're all walking different paths. So how could one person present a one-size-fits-all solution to anything? No, the goal is to understand the framework by which we operate. to understand that the thoughts we think have a monumental impact on how we live.
And so if you find yourself on the uninspired side of things, know that there's not a problem with you. You just haven't found a path that lights you up. You are perhaps focusing on the wrong things, right? Not leaving space for the right ones.
And if you find yourself constantly smothered by the weight of your own expectations, if every little step, decision, or movement matters too much, know that you are perhaps creating adversaries that don't exist. That you are right where you need to be, but you have to let yourself live. Experience life. One of the most beautiful Viktor Frankl quotes I've ever heard.
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Chapter 6: How can we overcome the hard things in life?
He says, ultimately, man should not ask what the meaning of life is, but rather he must recognize that it is he who is asked. There is so much power packed into this idea. It's like when you look around and see the outside world backing you into a corner, dictating to you how things should be, Remember that you don't take orders from the external world. You create the external world.
When all you see is negative. When all you feel are reasons to turn back. When the good in life is hiding away, reach out and find the positives. the one thing that can pick you up and carry you forward. And look, I'm not advocating that we live in this state of delusion. I'm not saying close your eyes, cover your ears, and pretend everything's great.
I'm saying every day, every situation provides at least one thing you need to be closer to where you want to be. And it just so happens that we're not always inclined to see that one thing. that solution. It just so happens that we need to become aware to remind ourselves.
So this is your reminder to look for it, your reminder to focus on the things that lift you up, that breathe life into you, not the things that keep you down. And so here's to finding that sweet spot, right? Walking the line between Viktor Frankl's meaning starts with you and my old pal Steve's mantra, nothing matters, so go live your life. This is not a race.
You're not being graded on the outcome here. You're giving yourself permission to experience that jolt you get when you open your eyes as the sun comes up each morning, knowing that how you're about to spend your time will be a product of the game you designed. A game in which, yes, you'll feel lost from time to time. You'll lose that North Star every so often.
You'll question the journey you're on. But guess what? When you take responsibility for the circumstance, you also empower yourself to right the ship. You're at the wheel, playing the game of life as it was meant to be played on your terms. If it does not serve you, let it go. If it doesn't help you move beyond it,
As Kahneman states, our thoughts grossly over-exaggerate that reality on the ground. So let that framework emphasize your passion, your strength and your dreams, not the inverse. What we focus on, we get. So believe in yourself. with such conviction that those around you look on and wonder what gave you the right to see those things.
What made you think it was okay to believe in that which you believe? You never got a permission slip in the mail. You never stumbled upon a permit that granted you access to the good things in life. No, you just came to understand the game and how it's played. You came to see that we have options. The option to find the bad and the option to find the good.
The choice to see why you can't and the choice to see why you will. That's what will separate you from both your past self and those looking on from afar. See, change is never a product of magic as people seem to think. No, most often, it's taking on the challenge of seeing what is not yet there. Stepping into the arena with possibility, with the upside. So today, see it.
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Chapter 7: What is the importance of focusing on what matters?
And I believe with all my heart and soul that the world has for us the spectacular. sitting there on the top shelf waiting for those who can acquire the self-belief and the awareness to reach out and grab it and how crazy a thought to realize that we could have been sitting next to the very thing we've needed for days months years but never taught ourselves to extend our hands and reach.
When I look back, the most important moments in my life were not tangible acquisition. and see the flashy things that try and capture our attention, right? The money, the condos, even social media growth, business growth, whatever it is you're working towards. Those things are wonderful. They are benchmarks that hopefully align with your North Star, but they are not the difference makers.
Not at all, right? They were the byproduct of what really mattered. They weren't the moments that moved the needle. My greatest moments were mental shifts. Cognitive transformations. That's why I do this for a living. I see how much can change when we step back and look at life just a little differently. It was my realizing that I was demanding too little of myself.
That the world won't see greatness in me until I see it in me. That shift that pushed me to demand more of myself, seek bigger challenges, value my work to a greater extent, charge more for my services. And that mental shift is what made some of those externalities possible. It's realizing that if you want it, more is on the table. That yesterday doesn't define you.
That it's never too late to begin again. That everything you need, you have, right? These are the ideas that truly change lives. They make the difference. And if we don't become aware of these things, we leave them in the rear view. We walk right by them. In other words, the most important moments of my life were when someone or something shook me and effectively said, hey, look around you.
If this is what you want, fine, enjoy. But for your information, there is more out there. And if you step up just a little, if you do just a little more, If you pivot and come at this thing a little bit differently, you will further that reach. You'll create another ripple effect that will transform your life. But we must stop and look around.
A good friend of mine, and this is just the other day, right? We're having lunch, we're talking about marketing, and we always joke that marketing is just a part of the business that I don't particularly enjoy, right? Necessary, but not my favorite. And we're going through kind of different strategies, ideas, and he presents one, and I say something like, eh, you know, I don't need to do that.
It seems a little over the top. And unfiltered, he goes, man, you're hurting your reach. Like, what good is that metaphorical restaurant that's not on anyone's radar? You're going to be the best pizza shop that no one knows about. And it just kind of hit me, right? It's like, man, I needed to see that differently. Maybe there's room to be a little more aggressive. Again, one example of many.
And not every time is the idea or opportunity the right one or necessary one, right? But at least you stopped. At least you thought about it. At least you contrasted where you are with the potential upside of doing something differently. That is where we leave opportunity on the table.
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Chapter 8: How do we find our own path in life?
is that they aren't comprised of or built with those steps like a house of cards, where one wrong move or some delay will cause the whole thing to fall, to come crashing down. No, what makes the journey divine is the infinite number of paths that can bring about its materialization. There are no wrong paths. Some arrive sooner, some arrive later, some mid-journey.
cause us to realize that the compass wasn't even pointed in the right destination, right? They change what it means to arrive. But the point is, every step is required, every step is a miracle, but the power is not contained solely in one step. But rather, what we choose to make of all the steps combined, the dips, the lows, and the losses only have significance if we give them significance.
Otherwise, they're just a few stops along the way to something beautiful. So why exhaust energy on data points that haven't arrived yet? On destinations in the future? Destinations that we trust ourselves to figure out anyway? Our emphasis should be on the present moment. On gratitude for the fact that we get to wake up and choose the pursuits that we've chosen.
In some days, those pursuits will feel like the miracles that they are. We'll see the finish lines, the mountaintops. We'll feel triumphant. And some days, those victories will be hidden in plain view, but they are there nonetheless. As we make our way into the great unknown that is life, piecing each second, each minute, each hour together to become the path leading us where we need to be most.